


If you were a pirate...

by Hawkseyebrow



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Bad Pick-Up Lines, Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 04:45:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16381664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkseyebrow/pseuds/Hawkseyebrow
Summary: Newton is awful at first impressions. Simply awful. And he’s even worse at seducing people. But he’s not one to give up easily, so if he decided that he’s going to hit on Hermann Gottlieb than he’s going to try his hardest. Which means using all of the terrible pick-up lines that he can think of.





	If you were a pirate...

The first time Newton met Hermann Gottlieb… it was a disaster. A complete and utter failure. He’s already been halfway in love with the guy at the time, just from exchanging letters with him. They were really compatible on paper. In person - not so much. Okay, maybe it was just a little bit his fault that the meeting turned out this way. Maybe starting a conversation with ‘Dude! You have the sickest cheekbones!’ wasn’t such a great idea. But in his defense, he got visually ambushed by the guy’s face. You don’t expect a human being to have such sharp facial features. You simply don’t.

Just as you don’t expect them to look so adorable when they get flustered by your compliment. It was an awkward one, sure, but a compliment nonetheless. And social savoir-vivre required the guy to respond with an equally awkward laugh and pretend that the other person hadn’t said anything, instead of starting a rant about respect and professionalism. Seriously, that was entirely unnecessary.

And so they parted their ways and haven’t spoken for a long time after that. That is until Newton boarded the ship that would take him to one of those pointless conferences about Wall of Life bullshit. As soon as he got used to the rocking of their boat, he went onto the deck to get some fresh air. Small cabin was not the place, that he wanted to spend this journey in. Once outside, he saw a distinctively familiar figure leaning on a railing, looking out into the sea. That was his second chance. This time he’d get it right.

He strolled nonchalantly towards call-me-doctor-Gottlieb, frantically thinking about something to say. It had to be smart, funny and a little bit flirty. Even after three years of no contact he could still feel the admiration he felt when they wrote letters to each other. He still wanted to be at least friendly with him, if not more.

“Excuse me, are you also travelling on this ship?” He asked, leaning on the railing next to Hermann. It was painfully cold where it met his back, but flinching away would be totally uncool, so instead he just crossed his hands on his chest and smiled.

Hermann turned towards him sharply. His eyebrows shot up and he breathed something that sounded like a very surprised and unfinished ‘Newton’ while looking him up and down. But then the initial shock was gone and the mathematician turned back to face the water. He swallowed loudly, visibly trying to keep an impassive face but failing miserably.

“Obviously.” He answered after a moment that felt like an eternity in a tone so dry it could be used to drain an entire ocean. That’s when Newt realized just what he’d said and had a sudden urge to bang his head against something. He’d never felt so betrayed by his own brain before. 

“Cool!” He squeaked, shifting nervously and playing with his PPDC identification card that was dangling on a lanyard from his belt loop. Before he had a chance to think of something else that could salvage this conversation, Hermann mumbled a quiet ‘excuse me’ and walked away. To be honest it looked more like running away and that was just rude. Newt hadn’t said anything that bad…

He was pretty sure that Hermann avoided him throughout the whole conference. He saw the mathematician only twice and it was always in circumstances that did not allow him to start a personal conversation. They were both busy trying to talk some sense into those wall-loving morons, but he still wished he had a chance to corner the guy somewhere semi-private and tell him exactly how much he missed talking to him.

Unfortunately such opportunity didn’t present itself until much, much later, after he had been transfered to Hong Kong. He was simultaneously enjoying having the whole lab to himself and going crazy from having noone to talk to, when he got a notification telling him that another Shatterdome is closing down and that in just a few days he’ll be sharing his lab again. This time with none other than one Dr. Gottlieb.

Torn between feeling excited, scared and angry, Newton decided to simply feel all of the above and try to prepare for the inevitable. So when the day came he had cleaned the lab, put on his best everyday clothes and sat at his desk, biting his nails nervously. He knew that he wouldn’t get any actual work done until he saw his new lab partner, but he turned on his computer anyway, if only to keep at least some appearance.

The silence was killing him, but he already decided against putting on any music. He looked back at the vast expanse of clear blackboard that was brought into the lab the day before. It took up the whole wall and he couldn’t help but wonder who in their right mind would still use blackboards. 

Those damn things attracted his attention over and over again, the unoccupied space practically begging Newton to unleash his creativity and draw something on them. He drummed his fingers on the table and bit his lips, trying to resist it. He remembered the first meeting and how much professionalism apparently mattered to Hermann. He should not do it.

So he did it a little bit. At the very center of the blackboard. His Trespasser was rather tiny, but it stood as a sharp contrast against immaculately clear background. There was only white chalk brought with the blackboards which was a crying shame. He slided one of the moving panels to cover it up, not wanting his new labmate to discover this little surprise too soon and then went back to sitting and waiting patiently.

Or as patiently as Newt could wait, which was not very. At one point he was so bored, he started organizing cables that were a tangled mess under his desk. He already got electrocuted once and was just trying not to let everything fall apart again when he heard the heavy doors to the lab open. He banged his head on the underside of his desk in his haste to get up and had to take a moment to will tears of pain away from his eyes. 

“I’m sorry the debriefing briefcase didn’t reach you, Doctor” he would recognize Marshal Pentecost’s voice anywhere. Just as he’d never forget how Hermann’s voice sounds. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest when he heard the man in question answer. 

Newton scrambled from under the desk, somehow knocking a pen down onto the floor in the process. It rolled towards the two men standing just a few steps from him and stilled just before it reached them.

“You’ll be working alongside Dr. Newton Geiszler.” Pentecost said, clearly either not noticing the suddenly tense atmosphere or not caring. “Yes, we’ve… met.” Hermann spoke carefully, looking straight at the other scientist. Everything that Newt wanted to say evaporated from his head the moment their eyes met.

They just stood there, looking at each other. From his periphery vision Newt could see the Marshal furrowing his brows. He needed to say something. And he needed to do it now if he didn’t want to first look like a total jerk and second let someone ruin this moment for him. Hermann came here from Vladivostok, right?

“How much does a polar bear weight?” He asked, just as Pentecost was taking a breath to say something. There was a moment of hesitance from both men. “On average? Around five hundred...” Started Hermann cautiously, like he was expecting to metaphorically step into some sort of trap any second.

“Enough to break the ice!” Interrupted Newton, stretching his arms out with a wide grin that was supposed to project friendliness, but which felt more like a pathetic attempt at ‘please, for the love of everything that’s holy, like me!’ impression. He was far too familiar with the second one not to recognize it.

And there was this awkward silence again. It was only broken when Marshal turned towards the exit. “I’ll leave you gentlemen to it then. Dr. Gottlieb, I’m going to e-mail you the documents myself.” He said, gracefully escaping this whole situation. The fact that Hermann didn’t even answer him showed how lost the mathematician felt here.

The longer he received no answer, the more fidgety Newt became. “Say something?” He finally asked in a small voice, suddenly finding his fingernails tremendously interesting. “I’m sorry.” At first the biologist thought that he must’ve heard it wrong, but a quick look at Hermann’s face proved that the man was indeed apologizing.

“I might have overreacted during our first meeting.” He elaborated, making an unsteady step forward. “Let’s start again. Hello, my name is Doctor Hermann Gottlieb and I think we’ll be working together.” He said, extending his hand in greeting. Newton took it, smiling gently “Call me Newt!” He simply said, shaking it vigorously. 

Their friendly relations lasted just a minute or two. Just as long as it took Hermann to get to his blackboards and move the center piece to the side, revealing Newt’s little surprise. The shouting match that followed was just the first of many yet to come.

And Newton never gave up on his quest of seducing Hermann. He knew they would be awesome together, he just knew it. But the other man stubbornly refused to even acknowledge his efforts.

He tried the ‘I found a random item on the floor and used it to approach someone by asking them if it’s theirs even though it’s obviously not’ technique, but it also didn’t work. Hermann just looked at him weirdly and asked if Newton felt all right. It was sweet that Hermann cared, but that wasn’t really what he was aiming for by showing him a little shell that he found at the seaside. 

One day Newton strolled silently into the lab after hours. He saw Hermann sitting at his desk and talking on the phone. From one-sided conversation Newton could tell that he was talking with one of his siblings, whining about the lack of chocolate that the long war has caused among other things. As soon as he was done, Newton came closer to him, leaning on his desk.

“You know, I have a secret stash of sweets hidden in my bunk, wanna come and see if there’s any chocolate?” Newt asked casually, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. At some point he decided that brute force was the easiest way of getting his feelings across to Hermann. Not that it worked, but at least he sometimes got funny reactions.

He was counting on one right now, waiting for the other scientist to realize that Newton was inviting him to his room. In the evening. To a one-on-one, sweet feast. It was obvious to anyone who even remotely knew him that the mathematician would turn down the invitation. But Newt did not expect the sharp, unnecessarily loud “No!” that nearly made him fall down from his perch. Before Newton got himself back together, Hermann was already hobbling out of the lab. 

It continued like that for quite some time: Newton getting more and more bold with his attempts to flirt and Hermann rejecting those advances more and more aggressively. The only question was which one of them was going to give up sooner. And the final answer to this question was not at all surprising.

Newton came into the lab one morning in an especially good mood. He was humming under his breath and went straight to the blackboards. It became part of their daily routine. First thing he did every day was saying something ‘utterly inappropriate for a workplace environment’, provoking a healthy, morning shouting match that’d get rid of any pent-up negative energy. Or at least that’s what he told himself. 

Feeling adventurous, he decided that he was going to risk actual bodily harm this time around and try something that might be stepping a bit out of the line. “Hey there, you look like my future boyfriend!” He exclaimed animatedly, keeping a safe distance just in case Hermann decided to put his cane to use.

The only reaction he got was Hermann resting his forehead against his equations and sighing heavily. “Why are you doing this?” The mathematician asked quietly after a moment. Newton stilled on his way towards the coffee pot, turning fully towards his lab partner. “Doing what?” He asked, confused. He haven’t done anything extraordinary today, at least not yet.

“Making fun of me.” Answered Hermann, also turning to face Newton “Taunting me, toying with my feelings. Do you really hate me that much?” His voice broke a little at the last sentence. Newt stood dumbstruck. “Whoa, dude, wait a second there!” He said, raising his hands “I’m doing what now?”

Taking a deep breath, Hermann smiled sadly “You keep courting me even though you obviously have no intention of following through had I said ‘yes’ at some point. Don’t you think it’s just cruel?” So unlike himself, he started playing with the handle of his cane, if only not to look at Newton.

“I do have an intention of following through, it’s you who never acknowledge my efforts!” Accused Newton, pointing a finger towards his lab partner, who raised his head sharply. “Your efforts?! How in the world is throwing foolish pick-up lines at me an effort?!” Both of them stepped closer to the line that divided two sides of their lab.

“I don’t know! I tried to be honest and I tried to be myself during our first meeting and how did it turn out?!” This time it was Newton’s voice that broke. “So maybe it was just easier to throw one-liners at you and let you reject them than it would have been to let you reject me.” He finished in a small voice.

The silence that followed was full of shock. It wasn’t usual for them to be so open, so honest with each other and yet here they were. “I never wanted to reject you, Newton...” Started Hermann, taking another step towards the other scientist. “I just couldn’t stand the thought of taking a chance only to learn that you were joking all along. I mean who in uses cheap pick-up lines as actual seducing strategy?” He asked with a nervous laugh.

“Me, apparently.” Smiled Newton, closing the rest of the distance between them. “It worked, didn’t it?” He joked, making an aborted gesture like he wanted to touch Hermann but decided against it. He felt like it was still a bit too soon for that.

“Yes, it did.” Hermann replied, extending his own hand in invitation. Newton gladly took it, entwining their fingers together. They smiled at each other, just for a second forgetting all about work.

A week later Hermann was sitting in a booth in one of the bars in Hong Kong. Both scientists went out with Tendo and a few of his friends that Newton referred to as ‘random-unnamed-j-techs’ which Hermann thought was a little offensive, but he couldn’t really recall their names himself, so he had to let it slide.

All of the techs were on the dancefloor, so Hermann was left alone to guard their wallets and other stuff and to wait for Newton to bring him their drinks. He didn’t need to wait for long because just after a moment his partner (he refused to call him ‘boyfriend’) was slipping onto the seat next to him, somehow not spilling either of their drinks on anything in the process.

“Hey, Herms!” Newton exclaimed, rising his voice to speak over the music. It wasn’t really loud but it was there. “If you were a pirate, would you keep your parrot on this shoulder…” He trailed off, resting his palm on Hermann’s shoulder that was closer to him. “or on that one?” He finished, reaching for the other shoulder behind Hermann’s back, hugging him in the process.

“Really smooth, Newton.” Groaned Hermann, allowing this public display of affection and leaning into the touch. “Really smooth.” He repeated, taking a swing from his drink and settling down more comfortably.


End file.
